Tag Archives: 10mm

Yes, Kriss brought out the Vector in 10mm. And I don’t care.
I LOVE the 10mm cartridge. The fact that there’s a new 10mm Carbine on the market, makes me happy. But I don’t want it.

Yes, it looks like it shoots well. However I find the Vector to be distasteful. The overall weapon system is far too bulky, and I find the weapon to be awkward on top of that.

During the heady days of Crusader Weaponry, one came into the shop and Joe was working on refinishing it. The weapon is excessively complicated, and everything pins through and into a sub-chassis that I feel is too delicate.

During my time as Retail Manager for Blackstone Shooting Sports, a customer wanted to look at the fixed stock version of one of the Vectors we had. He tried to fold the stock… and of course, broke it. Vector gave me hell trying to replace the part, insisting that I pay for a new one. I was finally able to get the part replaced under warranty, but it left a bad taste in my mouth for the company. It’s worth noting that the customer looked like a pasty white Urkel and did not have a lot of power to apply to the stock to get it to break so easily, and he didn’t even try. It broke far too easily. So if you want a Vector Carbine, get the folder version, not the fixed stock version.

Honestly, I don’t care if the Vector fired phased plasma in the 40 watt range. I wont have one. Being overly complicated, delicate and fragile, being awkward and bulky and is as attractive as George Soros and Diane Feinstein’s Love Child… I have a whole SHOT Industry worth of better options to spend my money on.

If you have one, and you like it – that’s the great thing about the Industry now – There are a great many choices. But for me, Kriss Vector isn’t one of them.

I was asked about my ideal 1911 Configuration… The Ogre Edition 1911, if you will. My dream 1911.

It’s really simple. We’re going to start with a Lightweight Commander platform, give it a Beavertail and a Commander style hammer. The rear sight will be neither a GI or a Novak, and it wont be adjustable. It has to be able to facilitate one hand slide-racking in an emergency. And it’s going to have the “Bobtail” conversion not just for looks, but for feel and concealability.

The Muzzle end will have a deep target crown and will be flush with the bushing. Also note, it’s going to have a Bushing and a GI style spring plug.

The front sight will have either a Trijicon HD, Big Dot, or Gold Dot front sight post for MAX Visibility. NO FIBER OPTIC. The rear will be nice wide notch, sans the 2 rear dots. I don’t like double dot rears.

The overall gun will be slightly “Melted” to soften any hard edges.
Serrations will be simple GI style, with nothing forward.

The grips will be rich Cocobolo wood, thin, and low profile, edges slightly rounded. The front strap of the grip frame will be 30LPI checkered.
The gun can either be all black, or black over a light colored frame.

The Caliber will be 10mm.

This is my ideal 1911. Though no one as of yet makes it.

EDIT: UPDATE:
Ha! Looks like my tastes have not really changed all that much…

Over on WeTheArmed.com, the subject is being discussed. This is something I’ve been wanting now for – let me check – about 15 years. And it’s finally happening. SIG is going to release some variants of the P220 in 10mm Auto.
This isn’t just good for us 10mm fans. This is really good for us 10mm fans. Really, outside of custom 1911’s that cost the same as a decent used motorcycle or even a car… There have only been two options for a production 10mm pistol.
1. Glock.
2. EAA.
Let’s look at Glock. The Model 20, and the Model 29 have been it. Luckily for us, Glock is also bringing out the Model 40 MOS in 10mm so we have another decent option… the Model 40 sporting a long slide and being optics ready. I’ve handled this gun and it’s going to be great.
EAA on the other hand… While they make a great gun in the Witness series, I still have a hard time taking EAA seriously because of their past marketing. At least they’ve finally dropped the embarrassingly sexist crap with girls that look like they came from the Red Light District of Richmond, VA. Looking at the new Witness line up, I see that EAA is taking great strides to be actually competitive in their offerings. They are making some new models now that I’d be very interesting in trying. But a lot of guys I know refuse to even look at an EAA for various reasons. And EAA is not considered a top tier provider of service handguns. Not like Glock, not like SIG…

With SIG finally breaking bad and throwing down 10mm, this legitimizes the 10mm cartridge even further. If these guns have any degree of success, like I think they well… I will expect to see the likes of Beretta and S&W jumping on board with 10mm service pistols down the road. I can even see Ruger offering a few variants of their 1911 in it…

I’d still really like to see CZ-USA offer a 97B in 10. The 97B and the P220 have been my dream Tens. I am very happy about this.

This review was published by Concealed Carry Magazine, for the photos that go along with this article, check out Concealed Carry Magazine.

SICK OF COMPROMISE:

The one thing that has always bothered me about Concealed Carry type guns is that they are all about compromise. You give up power for smaller size. You give up accuracy for a shorter barrel. You give up everything you really want in a handgun for the ability to have it on you all the time. Maybe I’ve grown cranky. Maybe I’m just fed up. Whatever the source of my feelings, I’m tired of compromises. I’m tired of shooting tiny guns that only make small holes, or dent paper. I want some raw horse power. I want some excessive force. And I want it with some decent accuracy, control and something that could get me through a knock down, drag out gun fight. A real gun. But it can’t be a 1911, and it can’t be a .45… or Tim would string me up with my own gunbelt.

SOMETHING DIFFERENT:

I was given the chance to “pick something” from the EAA catalog for review. Anything. Then shoot the hell out of it and see if it holds up. I’ve done 9’s and I don’t like .40’s all that much, and you are all sick of my gushing on .45 ACP. So I picked a Compact Witness in 10mm. This is an all steel, double action, 10 round, 10mm pistol with a 4 inch barrel, fixed 3 dot sights, and EAA’s “Wonder Finish”. The MSRP is only $450. That’s what it is, but it doesn’t really tell you guys what it really is. The gun is rather heavy for its size. Being that it is in a caliber with such potency, that weight is not a downside. The gun is in an intermediate size for being called a compact. I guess it is smaller than the full sized gun, but it isn’t really all that compact. The gun is thick through the grip so you can really hold on to it, but the length is too short to get all your fingers aboard. Even with the magazine’s finger extension, you still cant get your pinky to join the others on the gun. This might not be an issue for you out there with knuckles that are not swollen from arthritis. The Wonder Finish is an attractive finish that feels slick to the touch. It reminds me of NP3, for those that know what that is. As good looking as the finish is, the one thing I really like about it is that it is very easy to clean. After test firing all I did was spray it down with a little Hoppe’s #9, rinse that off with a little Hornady One Shot, then wiped it off. It looked clean as new and was slick as ever. Some Hoppe’s and a bore snake cleaned inside the barrel, and I put a little Tetra Gun Oil on the rails and sear and that was it. I was done cleaning in about 2 minutes.

THE CARTRIDGE:

This little beast is chambered for is something that most shooters are not familiar with. I showed it to a few guys, and they had never seen nor heard of 10MM before. (I know I live in the sticks, but there are good people here) So let’s review a little history. The 10mm was introduced in 1983 in conjunction with the Bren Ten pistol by the well known firearms house of Dornaus & Dixon… We all know those guys, right? No, me neither. All I know about them was that they had this pistol that was an epic flop. The famous Jeff Cooper was a huge supported of the Bren Ten, and the pistol was good. It just never caught on. I don’t know why. The cartridge is brilliant. It can be chambered in guns that you can chamber .45 in, meaning 1911 type guns. It offers a wide performance spectrum from target loads to deer hunting loads. You can go from 135 grain bullets at 1600 fps, to 200 grain bullets at 1200 fps. This gives you performance like no other auto cartridge… you want this sort of versatility in a more common platform, you will have to go with a .357 magnum or a .41 magnum because the 10mm is right in between those two. That’s a lot of power and flexibility that you just don’t find in your normal automatic pistol. Especially not an auto for concealed carry purposes.

In 1986 in Dade County Florida, the FBI got into a big shootout with a couple of baddies who didn’t fall over dead like they were supposed to. The Agents hit them repeatedly, but the baddies kept fighting, and Agents got killed. The FBI reevaluated everything about their side arms. They examined the calibers and the bullets and they added it all up. The answer was the 10mm.

Unfortunately for all the lawyers and accountants the FBI hires, the 10mm was too much for them. Too much recoil. So they downloaded the cartridge to mild levels. S&W said that they could do that in a 9mm length cartridge and put it into a smaller gun… and that’s how we got the .40 S&W cartridge, called the Short and Weak by those who had become used to the 10mm.

Looking back at this development, I can see that it was a good move and now most handguns are chambered in 9mm, .40 S&W, or .45 ACP. The downside is that the 10mm just fell out of the public eye. Today, it’s almost invisible. The gun store that I work at doesn’t carry 10mm ammunition, and we don’t carry any 10mm guns either. I drove out to SLC, Utah and stopped by every gun store that I knew of. It took all day, but I hit 9 shops. Only one of them stocked ammo, and none of them had a pistol. The one place that did have some ammo, only had 4 boxes. 4 boxes in a city of 2 million. I was discouraged. Fortunately there is the internet, and more ammo was ordered.

TIME TO SHOOT:

I didn’t want to shoot this gun alone… I wanted second opinions. Shooting Buddy Ben came with me one time, then The Travis came with me another time. We are all in agreement that the gun shoots very well, accuracy is more than acceptable, and the recoil isn’t just manageable, but enjoyable. Ben made a comment worth note, “The FBI couldn’t handle this? Sissies.”

I agree. The 10mm out of an all steel gun is really not much more kick than a .45, and I once taught a little Japanese lady that weight less than two bags of dog food how to shoot a .45 and she did great with it.

Ben and I decided to shoot at steel. The base plate of an abandoned oven is made of sheet metal thicker than most desert dwelling kitchen appliances. Ben had his trusted XD Tactical .45 that we used for comparison. The 5 inch barreled .45, shooting 230 grain FMJ Blazer Brass loads, punched through the metal, but pushed in a big dent before breaking through it. The EAA Witness 10mm with its 4” tube blasted through the same metal so easily that it looked like we used a Dewalt power drill. The penetration is incredibly impressive. You don’t see this sort of power from a gun you hide on your person.

We did find an interesting problem with the gun. EAA only sent us one magazine for the pistol, so I can’t tell if it’s a mag issue or an ammo issue. American Eagle 180 grain rounds would jam the gun on the second round from the last in the magazine – every time. This was a failure to feed as the round would stand up in the magazine and the slide close on that side of the cartridge. First thought was that this is obviously a magazine issue, but it only happened with AE 180’s. Norma, Buffalo Bore, Hornady, PMC, and Winchester did not jam.

The other thing that we all agreed upon was that the gun its self still needs a little work. The slide seemed to batter the frame pretty good, especially with the hotter Norma and Winchester loads. I think the spring is a bit too light from the factory, it could be two to four pounds heavier. The gun has some sharp corners around the trigger guard and muzzle. The front sight post is formed with the slide instead of dovetailed in like it should be. This means you can’t install night sights, or different sized posts to adjust the point of impact for different loadings.

CONCLUSION:

While the gun is good as it is… especially for the money. It could easily be better. You could take it from about a 7, to a solid 9.

The gun falls in a unique category in that it is big enough to not be as easily concealable as a compact, yet too small to be a target type gun. It needs to be optimized for our concealment purposes. Here is what needs to be done. First off, the sights. I know I always bitch about the sights on a pistol or hail them as needed. Sights and trigger are two critical things that can not be skimped on. EAA should have a guy in house to grind off the front sight post, cut in a dovetail, and put in Tritium night sights. That is a must for a gun to be taken seriously by me. Target guns and Defense guns need two different kinds of sights. Different purposes. This EAA Compact Witness is supposed to be a Defensive gun. The grips. The grip panels on the gun are good and… er… grippy. They help soak up the recoil a lot and make shooting this 10MM a joy. Unfortunately they are too thick. And the soft rubber allows fabric to cling, making the gun print too much. In my attempts to conceal this gun, I found that it printed too much under just light shirts like what I like to wear in warm weather. You would have to wear a sports coat over this thing to keep it hidden. I suggest to get rid of the grips and use thin profile aluminum grips from Hogue. This would slim down the profile a great deal and make packing CCW much much easier. The finger rest on the magazine is another thing. The gun is too short for a 3 finger grip, and the finger rest doesn’t help me one bit. Go ahead and let the pinky swing free on this one, and let the gun be just that much shorter for concealment. Now for the biggie. I’ve not tested a handgun that BEGS for a Melt Job more than this Witness. It has sharp edges on its sharp edges. The front of the gun has the full length rails that extend to the muzzle, all they way past any point of being useful, straight to being irritating. If this was taken to a belt sander for about a minute and a half – it would be brilliant. A custom gunsmith should be able to do this to your gun with very little effort, but with huge returns. Of course then he would have to refinish it and you would lose the Wonder Finish – which even EAA can’t tell me what it is. One last thing. The gun needs a recoil spring about 2 pounds heavier. Wolff Gun Springs can fix that one with no problem.

Considering the price of a new EAA Witness… having this work done to it wouldn’t be out of the realm of reasonable when you take into account what you would then have in your hands. A concealed carry gun that makes no compromises.

The best alternative to the 10mm Glocks and EAA Witnesses or a 1911. Not that I dislike those options, they are the common ones. I want something different, and I think the 1006 looks like the one to get.
The FBI version was the DAO 1076. The 76 also was slightly shorter in the barrel, like a Commander version of the 1006. I actually like the decock/safety, but I think I’d rather have the longer barrel with the 10mm.

So many shooters say they love the 10mm. But they’ve never owned one. They say that they would, if ammo was cheaper and more plentiful.
If they would actually step up and buy 10mm guns and buy 10mm ammo, then the Gun Industry would respond in kind. More guys buying 10mm, the more ammo would be produced, driving costs down. More variety would be produced. More gun makers would offer versions on 10mm.
But we won’t get that… Because 10mm is the Ron Paul of cartridges.

But could you imagine… An XDM, Beretta Storm, M&P, or a SIG… Anything from SIG… in 10mm?
I would buy a Beretta Px4 Storm Tactical in 10mm. I’d buy it ASAP. Hell, right now!
But then again, I have an active imagination.
Because the problem with the 10mm is also the gun options are so thin, no one is really interested in jumping into the 10mm bandwagon. Unless you like Glock or EAA, you ain’t getting a 10mm.

Here is a prediction.
Just like the first AWB brought back the popularity of the .45 Auto… I predict the next AWB will bring a surge of people to Ten Territory. 8 rounds of .45, you could have the full limit of 10 10’s. Think about that.

Some guys are tired of the 9 vs 45 debate… and they don’t want Middle of the Road. They are looking at the 10mm. I’ve been getting a lot of emails about the 10mm. Which 10 you can get. My answer is simple, but to get there is a winding road.

So you say you are shopping for that 10mm pistol. You start looking at the 1911’s of course, because the 1911 is like the Harley Davidson of the Gun World. Wilson Combat and Nighthawk Custom, as well as other high end 1911 Builders are all doing a few of them. They are all very nice indeed… and expensive. You really want to invest in one like that and throw it in a combat holster and roll in some gravel with it? We’re looking for a defensive gun here. And if you are not willing to roll around in the gravel with your super expensive custom built piece of artwork on your side… then you are not looking for a 1911. Your really not. If you choose one of these, and you are willing, then great. 10mm 1911’s do tend to be a bit more reliable, and accuracy is great, and you can get that first shot off nice and precisely. But let’s say you don’t want to drop 2 Grand on this pistol. We have to look elsewhere. You want that feel of a solid steel gun. Feels good doesn’t it? Oh yeah.

So you look at the EAA Witness pistols. Classic CZ design. Double stacked so you have a good capacity. Their “Wonderfinish” looks good. The gun feels good. But dang, it’s heavy. Accuracy is pretty good, but that long Double Action pull is not as great as it should be. The Witness has some sharp edges here and there… and yeah… that weight issues is just too much for daily all day carry. Let’s keep looking.

S&W is making a cool revolver in 10mm. One of the Nightguard series. Old School Cool, now in 10mm. And you can shoot .40 cal as well. How cool is that? But you have to use Moon Clips. Moon Clips are a PITA. I don’t really care for them and you shouldn’t either. Besides, this Nightguard would be cooler in .44, wouldn’t it?

That leaves the Glocks. You have two options. 20 and 29. The 20 is the full sized and the 29 is called a Sub Compact. Either one is great and either one you can theoretically get with the “SF” frame. The Slim Frame. But they are hard to find. In the .45, you can find SF’s but the 10mm’s are tough. My choice is the 20. Full sized, accurate, controllable, great capacity… There you go. Now we are talking about something.
But I don’t like the Glock Trigger, you say. Okay. So change it. You can put in a trigger that feels just like how you want it. Easy to do. Have it your way, just like Burger King. But the gun feels blocky, you say. You can alter the grip frame as well. It’s plastic. It’s pretty easy if you take your time. But it’s ugly. Do you really care what your Parachute looks like? It’s a weapon. One that if you use in a defensive situation, you might not ever see again anyway. The Glock is the perfect fit for the job. Don’t cry about the Grip Angle. You get used to it pretty quickly if you decide you want to.

The main problem with the 10mm Cartridge is not the Cartridge its self. Its not that the ammo is more expensive than others… Because its not… It’s what, 2 bucks more than .45 Auto? The problem is that it’s been a Commercial Meh. Why is that? Too powerful? I find it just like .45 Auto… it’s not too much. The FBI dropped it, not because it’s too gun for their Accountants, Lawyers and sundry beancounters… It was because there was too much of the gun for them to get their hands around. The 1006 was a gun made for Non-Human hands. It didn’t fit all those little girly hands, so they were not able to shoot it very well.
What the 10mm needs is for the gun makers to put out the guns that people are already buying, and give them the 10mm Option for it. M&P, XDM, and the Storm are three of the most popular guns out there as far as our local sales go… and none are offered in the 10. This is the 10’s main issue in a nutshell… There are no 10mm options in the guns people are wanting to buy.

Guns that SHOULD be available in 10mm.

1. S&W M&P. In Full, Tactical, and Compact sizes.
2. SIG P220. In both Full and Compact.
3. Springfield XDM. In the Full, Tactical and Compact.
4. CZ 97B. The new style with the Decocker.
5. HK45. They have two sizes and neither are 10mm.
6. FNH FNP Tactical. This would turn a 10mm pistol into an offensive platform.

I wanted a gun with more power and longer reach. So I ordered a Glock 20SF today. That’s a 10mm, Sports Fans.
Should be here Friday or Monday. Some have said all pistols suck. 10mm… sucks a lot less.

The Glock 20SF was my pick because I just don’t dig the Gen 4’s and the SF is a lot like the Gen 4 with no backstrap attached. The only one I could find with any of the distributors were only coming with the 10 round mags, so I ordered some 15 rounders.

I’ll need a holster for it. I need to pick out some good sights. And I need to get it to Joe at Crusader HQ for the Full Tilt Crusader Conversion.